3. Examine the informational structure and interactive possibilities of ONE piece of ‘conditional design’ (game, narrative, collaborative process) of your choice. Explore these as examples of interaction, with particular reference to the role of the audience & designer in each.

This essay will explore and look into the interactive possibilities between gamer and audience in the football video game FIFA 17, examining the role of both the audience and designer and how they interact along with the informational structure of the game. “One of the industry’s leading game engines, Frostbite delivers authentic, true-to-life action, takes players to new football worlds, and introduces fans to characters full of depth and emotion in FIFA 17” that is a quote from EA Sports on the latest version of the game. The first ever video game was released in 1993 by EA Canada's extended play productions and was called FIFA 94, it featured only 48 national teams with the newer version of the game giving the audience more control with the bigger variety of teams to choose from. The current game FIFA 17 features over 30 different leagues and more than 650 playable teams from around the world giving the audience more ways to feel in control of the game with the vast variety of choice in teams to play as. EA Sports want the audience to be in complete control of every moment on the pitch, to have complete innovation in the way players think and move and to physically interact with opponents.

When turning on the games console to FIFA 17 for the very first time and the game has loaded up you have the option to choose the language you would like to play the game in, once the language has been selected there is a brief tutorial from the designers on how to play the game and what options take you to certain places of it or which buttons do what. After that you will enter the next screen, the home screen where the audience have several options to choose from on how they would like the game to be played, those gameplay modes are career mode, ultimate team, kick off, the journey, tournament mode, women’s international cup, online seasons, online friendlies, skill games, play next fixture, practice arena, be a pro player and be a pro goalkeeper. There is a settings page where you have options on how you like the game to be played, the first option you have is the difficulty level of the game from easy all the up until world class where as if the gamer chooses to play the game in easy mode the gamer will feel in control seeing as it would then be easier to win. The other options there are include the option to decide are on how long each half of the football game shall be, at what speed the game shall be played at from slow, medium to fast, the choice of where the camera shall be focused on during the match whether that’s locked onto a certain player for the duration of the game or locked onto the ball, what language the commentary shall be in, choice of having the time and score display on or off during the game. Some of the settings allow the gamer to take full control of how they would like their game to play out with a choice on whether to have injuries, offsides, bookings and handballs turned on or off, there are options for the audience to be able to change the speed of play, speed of pass and shot power for the user and the computer with the level between zero and one hundred, so if the gamer wanted an easier way to play the game then the computers statistics could be put down really low with the gamers statistics put up really high. “Making every page or screen self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: it just makes everything seem better”. As well as changing the settings to the game the gamer can create an avatar of themselves or of a totally new made up character to join a team and be played as in any gameplay mode although there is a limit on what the avatar can look like as there are only a certain amount of choices on each part of the face and build of the player.

In the career gameplay mode there are several different ways that the gamer is able to interact with the game, one of the main ways is for the gamer to design an avatar of themselves with their names and likeness to manage a team of their choice from a league of their choice. “Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person whom the designer is communicating”. When the career mode has been set up with the team the audience manages everything a football manager would manage in reality from picking teams to dealing with the financial side of the job and handing out new contracts to the players. There are fixed choices though when picking your team from the fixtures that have been created by the developers and the amount of money you would start with, there are also choices where the gamer feels in control as the fixtures can either be simulated or played but if the game is simulated by the computer the result is out of the gamers hands meaning there is a chance of losing the fixture so it’s a gamble to be simulated.

In the actual gameplay, so once all the interactive options have been set up and gone through and the audience have learnt what buttons to use to play the game, there are mini games to be played where the designer gives the audience the chance to test their skills and to be taught new skills before throwing themselves straight into the game. The mini games are basically extra tutorials as the buttons that need to be pressed will hover above the character for the first go but after that the rest of the mini game the audience will be left alone to develop their skills and to work it out for themselves, but there is a help bar in the corner of the screen if the audience need to see the buttons hover above the character once again. If the gamer is logged in to their online account they can interact with other players online and will be placed into a mini league with their friends, depending on how well they do in the mini games there will be a better place in the league for the audience giving more enthuses on achieving better results from the training.

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable”. FIFA 17 is unlike any other version of the game that has ever been released as there is a new gameplay mode that has never been used in the game before called the journey which allows the audience to interact with the game more. The journey is a story mode based game and is also a new design that allows the audience to start as a character called Alex Hunter where the audience will play out a career as it would be in the real world with the ups and downs of professional football from on the pitch to off the pitch alongside best friend in the game Gareth Walker. The first choice you are given is what team to pick as your favourite so that the character Alex Hunter will grow up in the game supporting that team just as the audience would in reality. When the game starts Alex Hunter and Gareth Walker will be at an under eleven tournament where the team your character is playing for faces a match winning penalty and the audience has the choice of what position to shoot with consequences whether the character scores or misses, if the character scores the penalty then the game is won but if the penalty is missed then best friend Gareth Walker will win the game for the team instead. After getting through what is called the exit trials and depending on the score received from it, the audience will be given another option but this time it’s which team they shall sign a professional contract with, there are 20 teams the audience can choose from with the top teams having a bigger ask from the audience and the lower ranked teams ask for a bit less from the character with also the money being lower and higher in the relevant teams. In the home screen which is the character’s bedroom there is an option to go straight into the next phase of the game which is either a training session or game day and an option to read messages via text messages and social media. Once the match starts Alex Hunter will be on the bench as a substitute and come on around the seventy minute mark with a list of targets to achieve, depending on how highly ranked the team is that the gamer has picked will depend on how difficult the targets shall be, for example as a lower ranked team the target will be to get at least a seven out of ten in order to make the starting line up for the next game and for a higher ranked team it would be to achieve at least an eight of ten, the other targets include to score a goal in the time frame and to also win the game. Once the match is over and again dependant on what the gamers character scored out of ten during the match, Alex Hunter will be in the media room and interviewed by a member of the media with the audience given three different options as answers that will take the characters down three different routes as a personality, the three answers could either take Alex Hunters personality to cool, fiery or balanced which gives the audience full control on how the character will be perceived by the public via social media in the characters bedroom on the home screen.

FIFA ultimate team is a gameplay mode which enables the audience to build their very own squad of players to compete through online or offline modes meaning they are able to interact with other gamers from around the world in different tournaments and league structures. The players in the ultimate team game mode are placed onto playing cards and come in three different categories of cards, they are bronze with a rating between 0-64, silver with a rating between 65-74 and gold with a rating between 75-99, 0 being the lowest rating and 99 being the highest. The cards are bought with money that is won through the game but the designer also allows the audience to have the opportunity to buy packs of cards with real money. The audience has no say on who they get from which pack as it’s all selected randomly by chance so that’s where the designer has the control. With the stack of cards the gamer ends up with there is a chemistry level that needs to be accommodated to, so there are no specific set of rules to follow when the audience picks their team and formation but the designer does make it more complicated which gives the audience more to think about when picking the team before competing against other gamers online.

In conclusion after exploring all the interactive possibilities between the audience and designer in FIFA 17, I have discovered that the designer wants the audience to be able to feel they have a lot more control on where they would like to go in the game. Even though there are certain sets of rules to follow in the game, there are a lot of opportunities for the audience to switch roles with the designer and determine how in certain situations the game will play out or how the audience would like to play the game. The designer allows the audience to experience real life situations and real life decision making through the visual story modes that it has to offer.



https://www.easports.com/fifa/frostbite

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/18518-the-psychology-of-everyday-things

https://tubikstudio.com/20-quotes-about-design/